In connection with the establishment of the Ontario Securities Commission’s new Whistleblower Program in July 2016, which includes monetary incentives for whistleblowers in Ontario, the Ontario government has approved amendments to the Securities Act (Ontario) to provide additional protection to persons who report a potential violation of Ontario securities law or a by-law or other instrument of a self-regulatory organization. The amendments were proclaimed into force on June 28, 2016.

In the highly-publicized decision of Doe v. N.D., the Ontario court recently granted a victim of cyberbullying significant damages, to compensate her for the serious emotional and reputational harm she suffered in the hands of the defendant.

The current release of Finance and Accounting PolicyPro updates the policy on Canada’s anti-spam legislation (commonly known as “CASL”). Test your knowledge of CASL with the following questions, then review the answers below to see how well you did.

People love their phones. Phones now accompany us pretty much wherever we go, whatever we do. People use their phones in church, in restaurants, at the theatre, and, apparently, while committing crimes. And our phones are leaving a trail behind us.

Police know this. They also know that records are created every time our phones connect to cell towers to send and receive calls, SMS messages, or data. Every one of those records indicates that a phone (and, implicitly, the person carrying it) was in range of a particular cell tower, at a particular time.
This could be useful information if, say, one wanted to identify the person (or people) responsible for a string of jewelry store robberies.

The method will be familiar to many from movies and T.V. shows: all you need to do is to gather a list of every single person who was near each of the locations of interest at the time of interest and analyze the patterns. And, hey, that cell tower data can provide that list….

In the recent decision of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court of Crouch v Snell, the Court struck the Cyber-Safety Act, finding it to be unconstitutional. Specifically, the Court held that the Cyber-Safety Act violated section 2(b) (freedom of expression) and section 7 (the guarantee of life, liberty and security of the person) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What impact does the Crouch v Snell decision have on the Federal cyberbullying laws?

On December 9, 2014, Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act (Act) – also known as the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act –, received the royal assent. The Act came into force on March 9, 2015.

Author: Xavier Beauchamp-Tremblay, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP The entry into force of the first group of provisions of Canada’s anti-spam act [1] (CASL) on July 1, 2014, (the Spam Provisions) generated considerable attention. Now that businesses have (hopefully) determined and deployed their compliance strategy for the Spam Provisions, another set of articles from CASL is […]

By Martin F. Sheehan and Nikolas Blanchette The civil law has recognized for some time that a party to a telephone conversation can record the conversation and use it in connection with civil litigation unless the use of such evidence would tend to bring the administration of justice into disrepute [1]. It is also recognized […]

On June 27, 2013, Madam Justice B.B. Warkentin of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice held that section 69(2) of the Competition Act violates sections 7 and 11(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms when applied in criminal proceedings.

On November 20, 2013, Bill C-13 received first reading before the House of Commons. The media touted Bill C-13 as the new “Cyberbullying Legislation”. However, assuming Bill C-13 receives royal assent, how effective will be it be in combating cyberbullying?

Whistleblowing occurs when employees reveal corporate wrongdoing, usually in their organization, to law enforcement. Unfortunately, it is common for whistleblowers to experience demotion, dismissal and otherwise negative treatment from their employers after they disclose the malfeasance or corruption. In order to deal with this serious issue, some companies have created codes of ethics to ensure that their directors, officers and employees are aware of and adhere to standards of conduct that ensure the company performs and is represented in an honest and responsible manner.